Mexico City - In mid-December, Mexico's Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones (Federal Telecommunications Institute, or IFT) adopted provisions to ensure that telephone service providers comply with the obligation to refrain from collecting domestic long distance charges from users as of January 1, 2015.

The rules, approved by the full regulatory body, established expressly that from that date, all of the national territory will be considered as a single service area, from which it follows that all calls in the country should be considered as local calls.

This, says the Institute in a statement, is to ensure that there are no long distance fees for cell phone users; end-user fees for dialing a number with a 045 prefix will cost the same as making calls to a number with a 044 prefix.

Similarly, rates for calls preceded by 01 or 02 are now the same as those that are dialed with seven, eight or, in the case of cell phones, 10 digits.

The provisions expressly state that dealers, licensees and authorized agents are only able to register for (or maintain) Local Service rates, and can only charge long distance fees for international calls.

It also states that telephone service dealers and/or authorized agents that have modified the contractual conditions employed in connection with the elimination of national long distance charges must inform users of such changes.